ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries recently completed Out West: The LGBTQ Community Archives Cataloging Project, an ambitious collaboration with San Francisco's GLBT Historical Society. Support from the Council on Library and Information Resources under their Hidden Collections grant program enabled archivists at ONE and GLBTHS to make available 111 previously hidden collections tracing LGBTQ history--and daily life--in California communities.
Out West features 89 collections from ONE Archives and 22 collections from the GLBT Historical Society. These collections preserve the history of struggle for LGBTQ civil rights and give a comprehensive view of U.S. LGBTQ activists, artists, and organizations over a 50-year period. Ranging from the records of the Asian/Pacific Lesbians and Gays, Blue Max Motorcycle Club, Community United Against Violence, the Woman’s Building, and Gay Men’s Chorus to artifacts and papers documenting the life of Harvey Milk, José Sarria, Hank Wilson, and Patricia Nell Warren—these collections capture myriad facets of pre- and post-Stonewall LGBTQ experience. The collections offer a rare glimpse into the hidden origins of LGBTQ social equality movements in the 1950s and 1960s and show how California-based people and organizations had a national impact on LGBTQ civil rights.
With support from CLIR, archivists processed the 111 collections, created online finding aids that enable researchers to browse their contents, and launched an Out West project webpage featuring images from the previously hidden archival collections. These images were also published on the USC Digital Library and the Digital Public Library of America..
Inez Garcia flyer, GLBT Historical Society, ca. 1974-1975
Hal Rebarich in uniform sitting with unidentified soldier on rocks, ONE Archives, undated.
Brochure for the Black Cat Cafe in San Francisco, GLBT Historical Society, 1952
Blue Max Motorcycle Club members with inflatable bunnies attached to their helmets for the Saddleback Easter Run, ONE Archives, April 1969